1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a document managing system and method in which documents to be printed by a printing apparatus are managed by a document managing apparatus, and to the document managing apparatus, the printing apparatus, and an information processing apparatus for the system, a program for implementing the method, and a storing medium storing the program.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, a document managing system is known in which registered documents are searched through and a document found by the search is printed by a plurality of printing apparatuses connected to a network. A document managing system providing a document managing service via, for example, the Internet is provided with a document searching function for searching for any of registered documents (see, Japanese Laid-open Patent Application (Kokai) No. 2001-222525). In this document managing system, a plurality of search items are settable in a document management information area of each electronic document. When, for example, a document management period is set as a search item, an external access to the electronic document is inhibited after this document management period is expired. It is also possible to conduct a search and to select and print an electronic document that matches a search condition, out of registered electronic documents.
However, the aforesaid conventional document managing system had the following problems. That is, when a document provided from the document managing service via the Internet is printed by a printing apparatus such as a copying machine installed in, for example, a convenience store, namely, when the document is printed by a printing apparatus in a place where there is no PC, a user inputs a search condition by using an operation part of the printing apparatus and a document that matches the search condition is selected and printed. In this case, the operation part of the printing apparatus, which is generally constituted of a touch panel, is very poor in operability and is not easy to use if the user tries to input a search condition requiring many and complicated inputs.
Moreover, when a printing format different from a default printing format is to be set for printing, it is necessary to newly set a printing format every time a document is printed even if a printing format for printing the document is the same as that previously set, which was troublesome.